Jams & Preserves | Gourmandistan

Camille Glenn, coconut custard, chickens and coyotes

March 3, 2012 by Steve

Camille Glenn is a name instantly recognized by most food-inclined Kentuckians and even by some Yankees. The caterer, cooking teacher and food writer was, as noted in the Village Voice when she died at the age of 100 a couple of years ago, an “avid promoter of local, seasonal produce long before it became fashionable.” Glenn’s The Heritage of Southern Cooking has been one of our most-used volumes and most-given wedding gifts for decades. Michelle recently came upon a copy […]

Categories: Chicken keeping, Coconut, Cooking, Custards & Puddings, Food, Jams & Preserves, Old cookbooks, Recipes, Vegetarian

Linzer Hearts still beating after all these years

December 17, 2011 by Steve

Michelle’s spattered and battered paperback edition of The Silver Palate Cookbook is full of notes, as during the Eighties it was one of our most-used volumes. We don’t turn to it much these days, as it seems a bit dated (Brie cheese baked in phyllo and a pound of butter, anyone?) and a bit embarrassing (why on earth did we note that baked garlic was “strange”?). But we keep the volume on our bookshelves, in large part because of these […]

Categories: Christmas, Cookies, Cooking, Food, Jams & Preserves, Nuts, Old cookbooks, Recipes, Vegetarian

The agony and the apricot-y

December 10, 2011 by Michelle

Once upon a time, when much younger and much more energetic, Michelle made cookies to share with friends and family for the holidays. Of course, Michelle being who she is, these cookies were very, very good—but also took up very, very much of her time. Within a few years she was spending virtually the entire month between Thanksgiving and Christmas obsessively thinking about cookies, making cookies, packaging cookies and distributing cookies to a growing number of people, constantly trying to […]

Categories: Chocolate, Christmas, Cookies, Cooking, Food, Jams & Preserves, Nuts, Old cookbooks, Recipes, Vegetarian

First peek at peach season.

July 13, 2011 by Michelle

While peaches have appeared at our local markets, the best part of our region’s yield may be yet to appear. Steve wasn’t too impressed with the size or flavor of the fruits we found last weekend, so he was judicious with his purchases. “Judicious,” of course, meant he only bought half of Mrs. Deutsch’s supply instead of the whole thing—so that, plus the bunch he bought from another market, made another jam session essential. Michelle, in a bit of penance […]

Categories: Cooking, Food, Jams & Preserves, Old cookbooks, Peaches/Nectarines, Recipes, Vegetarian

Black raspberry jam

June 11, 2010 by Michelle

Black raspberries are the RuPaul of brambly drupelets. While they are raspberries, they have the sass and presence of a really good blackberry. The difference? It’s the core. Both blackberries and raspberries are collections of little seed-bearing fruits (called “drupelets”) attached to a central structure. In a blackberry, these drupelets remain attached, so the fruit has a “core.” Raspberry drupelets stick to each other instead of the structure, leaving them hollow. Michelle turned our recent find of farmers’ market black […]

Categories: Cooking, Food, Jams & Preserves, Raspberries, Recipes, Vegetarian